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Feature Article
New York Rieslings are leading the way to the varietal's growing popularity.
The Coming Riesling Resurgence
Finger Lakes Wines Are Hands Up Leaders
An APPELLATION AMERICA tasting reveals the magic and versatility of Riesling, especially as it comes from New York’s Finger Lakes AVA.
by
Dan Berger
July 18, 2007
A decade from now, when we’ll all be rather blasé about how Riesling took American wine consumers by storm late in the first decade of the 21st century, and how it then had established itself as the stellar choice for elegant dinner pairings with seafood, many of us will be asking ourselves:
Sure, we still have a long way to go before we reach that state of affairs, but a tasting of New York Rieslings at the APPELLATION AMERICA offices in San Francisco recently [See tasting notes below.] lent some serious credence to the facts that not only is New York’s Finger Lakes district already producing some superlative dry-styled Rieslings, but they also display a lovely regional character which makes its Rieslings all the more appealing.
It’s not unthinkable that at some point in the near future, the phrase “Finger Lakes” will conjure up thoughts of great Riesling in the way that “Napa Valley” evokes thoughts of Cabernet Sauvignon.
Nothing wrong, of course, with Washington’s Columbia Valley Riesling, or with those from Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino (Cole Ranch especially!), or Monterey, Santa Barbara or even Temecula.
However, New York has shown this potential for well over a decade and some - I, for example - could argue that it’s been around a lot longer.
One stop on my visit to Hammondsport and environs was at Gold Seal where I chatted with and tasted with the late Charles Fournier and Guy DeVaux. As a memento of that visit, I still have a bottle of 1975 Gold Seal Riesling in our cellar. It was then too that I visited the property of Dr. Konstantin Frank and sampled another style of Riesling which displayed impressive fruit.
On my third visit to the Finger Lakes, in 1986, I was traveling with two of my three sons, then aged 5 and 8, who swam in the lakes while I sampled wines. I was still fascinated by the appealing Seyval Blancs, including two by Bill Wagner, and since the heat of summer called for a lot of white wine and there was plenty of that wine. And there was also some fine Gewurztraminer and sparkling wine (Glenora’s Blanc de Blanc was and remains a winner!) and even an off-dry Vidal that cooled the brow.
But on that trip, as early as 1986, it was clear that Riesling would be a brilliant call for the soils and climes of the Finger Lakes, and so it has been proven. It’s one of the few New York wines to be widely accepted by locals. New York City restaurants, which traditionally have leaned heavily on the wines of France and eschewed their own, have embraced New York Riesling as almost no other local wine.
If sales of New York Rieslings were not already red hot locally, they might be strong candidates for national exposure. Alas, New York doesn’t have enough Riesling to meet the current demand, let alone sell it across the nation. (It’s still available on the Internet, of course!) But the Riesling phenomenon now catching on in major U.S. cities, and soon to impact smaller markets, has caught the New York wine industry a bit flat-footed. New York needs a lot more Riesling acreage, but that development is slow in coming.
Even though Riesling is obviously destined to become a huge success, few growers in New York seem committed to planting significant amounts of it. And part of the problem stems from a quarter century ago when wine scientists told New York growers that De Chaunac was a “slam dunk” variety for them to plant. And they gave the growers all sorts of sound reasons why they should plant De Chaunac.
Jim Trezise, head of the New York Wine and Grape Foundation, says that many growers heeded the suggestion and planted De Chaunac - and the market for wines from that grape proved to be nearly non-existent. “So growers are naturally gun-shy when science tells them to tear out producing vines and put in Riesling,” he says.
Of the existing Riesling plantings, therefore, a majority are older vines and the wine making in the Finger Lakes is rather sophisticated in that it seeks to maximize varietal character by harvesting at levels which are not likely to make for an excessively ripe flavor.
means picking relatively early, with sugar levels as low as 20° Brix, and rarely higher than 22°. As a result, the wines retain a certain mild citrus and Granny Smith apple character in their aroma with a mineral-y base and some muscularity.
These wines are usually made with a trace of residual sugar to balance the rather stern acid levels, and that makes them a nice contrast to many Australian Rieslings whose distinctive lime aromas tend to dominate wines which are almost all bone dry.
Variance in sugar levels can make some of the New York wines taste a little more succulent than others, and in our tasting the three top wines were all a tad on the soft side with residual sugar levels in the 1%+ range.
Even so, it would be possible to classify them as dry wines for most American consumers, even though our panel of expert wine judges clearly recognized the amelioration effect the sugar had on the wines. We rated them just off-dry.
As young as these wines were (all from the 2006 harvest), we saw very little of the petroleum notes that often are found in Riesling. Also, the top three wines of the group seemed to have been fermented with a yeast strain that accentuates terpenes (wildly floral compounds) which gives the wines a slight tropical fruit component. One such yeast, RHST, seems to be popular with some wine makers for giving Riesling an exotic aroma.
Nothing wrong with that, of course, since such wines often are quite appealing. Still, some wine makers who don’t use this technique decry wines that have an amyl acetate (ripe banana) aroma.
New York Riesling is distinctive, so much so that Napa Valley wine maker Scott Harvey (who got his enology training in Germany) trucked 1.6 tons of New York Riesling grapes into California in 2005 and turned it into 100 cases of wine. The fruit came from Anthony Road Wine Co. in the Finger Lakes.
However, because federal regulations prohibit a vintage date on such wines (the grapes crossed more than a single
state line), Harvey bottled it with a label that had the not-so-cryptic designation “20NY05.” He also bottled a bit more of a Napa Valley Riesling that same vintage, and says he will continue to market a small amount of New York Riesling.
How likely is it that Riesling will achieve the national recognition I predict for it in a decade? Well, all the signs are there. (A prior article I wrote for Appellation America makes this point as well.) Here’s some evidence:
* Chateau Ste. Michelle and its ancillary brands made 711,000 cases of Riesling in 2006 and sold it all without any resistance;
* Fetzer (based in Mendocino) will produce 80,000 cases of California Riesling (it’s just about pre-sold) as well as 25,000 cases of German wine that it will buy in bulk (to sell in 12 states when it runs short of its California Riesling). In addition, the company will make 25,000 cases of Monterey Riesling under the Jekel brand.
* Hogue Cellars of Washington came close to 100,000 cases in 2006; Covey Run and Columbia (brands of Constellation) also produced tens of thousands of cases;
* Randall Grahm’s Pacific Rim brand did an estimated 100,000 cases last year with a blend of Washington and German Riesling, and Grahm has put 200 acres of Riesling into Washington soil and is building a huge facility to make only one varietal;
* German Riesling sales are significantly up in the United States over the last three years, and Australian Riesling sales in this country are at an all-time high.
Now that I look at this not-so-scant evidence, perhaps Riesling will be nationally recognized in a lot less than a decade. Maybe, all things being equal, Riesling will be a household name before the end of this decade, a scant three years from now.
Of course, a Sideways-like film that’s a paean to the grape couldn’t hurt.
Note: All wines priced between $13 and $17
1. Standing Stone: With fruit from a vineyard that was planted by Charles Fournier and Guy DeVaux, this wine exhibited faint spice and leafy-floral aroma with hints of pepper, peach, green apple and the barest hint of petroleum. With about 2% residual sugar, the wine has tremendous potential. A clear winner with five of the nine judges scoring it 18 or 19 out of 20!
2. Lamoreaux Landing Semi-Dry: Delicate, fine lacy aroma with lemon and a trace of lime and green apple; noticeable but fine-balanced sugar on the entry. The key is the bracing acidity. Altogether impressive, but still a bit backward. Better in a year. Four scores of 17 or higher.
3. Chateau Lafayette Reneau: Wild strawberry, peach and pepper (!) with exotic tropical notes in the mid-palate. Noticeably sweeter than the first two wines, but with some exotic floral notes in the finish, so it’s succulent, but perfect balance makes it ideal for Thai food. Four scores of 17 or higher.
4. Dr. Konstantin Frank Dry: Grapefruit/nectarine/sour apple aroma with faint hints of spice, perhaps artichoke (!) and currants. Simply dramatic dry wine that was better with aeration. Three scores of 17 or more.
5. McGregor Dry: Exotically floral (not unlike Michigan Riesling!) with white peach, carnation/spice, white pepper and a dry mid-palate. Superb dry version aimed at sashimi.
6. Anthony Road Dry: Dried lead, citrus and a faint trace of wet earth for complexity. Lean and a tad angular, better with seafood.
7. Ravines Dry: Lime/citrus, pepper, faint hint of petroleum, and faintest trace of artichoke. Distinctly food oriented and a bit more muscular than others. Three scores of 16.5 or higher.
8. Sheldrake Point Dry: Mineral/slate/citrus aroma; a bit angular, but very appealing wine to pair with seafood. Slightly leafy/herbal and unripe apple notes add complexity. A tad controversial.
9. Lamoreaux Landing Reserve: Distinctly Granny Smith apple, citrus, green tea and currants. A most complex wine that one taster didn’t like at all, but which received good scores across the board. Dry; most appealing with food.
10. Prince Michel Rapidan River Dry [Virginia]: earthy-yeasty, with attractive mineral/slate and a truly angular mid-palate. Note of petroleum a bit too assertive for most tasters.
Other Rieslings also tasted: 2005 Fox Run Reserve (stylishly dry and very attractive); 2006 Lakewood (corked sample); 2006 Persimmon Creek [Georgia].
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Get a taste of Finger Lake Rieslings. Read other full reviews at APPELLATION AMERICA
However did we all get so seduced by “the Chardonnay thing” for all those years?It has long been alleged that Riesling is a far greater grape variety than Chardonnay, and by 2017, I suspect, the quality of Riesling as a dinner-table companion as well as an after-dinner winner will be the buzzword of wine sophisticates. And we will all be chatting about Riesling’s stunning regionality as an added bonus to its quality.
Sure, we still have a long way to go before we reach that state of affairs, but a tasting of New York Rieslings at the APPELLATION AMERICA offices in San Francisco recently [See tasting notes below.] lent some serious credence to the facts that not only is New York’s Finger Lakes district already producing some superlative dry-styled Rieslings, but they also display a lovely regional character which makes its Rieslings all the more appealing.
It’s not unthinkable that at some point in the near future, the phrase “Finger Lakes” will conjure up thoughts of great Riesling in the way that “Napa Valley” evokes thoughts of Cabernet Sauvignon.
Nothing wrong, of course, with Washington’s Columbia Valley Riesling, or with those from Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino (Cole Ranch especially!), or Monterey, Santa Barbara or even Temecula.
However, New York has shown this potential for well over a decade and some - I, for example - could argue that it’s been around a lot longer.
Finger Lakes Riesling Were Ahead of Their Time
Indeed, I first witnessed this in wines I tasted on my first visit to the Finger Lakes in November 1977.One stop on my visit to Hammondsport and environs was at Gold Seal where I chatted with and tasted with the late Charles Fournier and Guy DeVaux. As a memento of that visit, I still have a bottle of 1975 Gold Seal Riesling in our cellar. It was then too that I visited the property of Dr. Konstantin Frank and sampled another style of Riesling which displayed impressive fruit.
On my third visit to the Finger Lakes, in 1986, I was traveling with two of my three sons, then aged 5 and 8, who swam in the lakes while I sampled wines. I was still fascinated by the appealing Seyval Blancs, including two by Bill Wagner, and since the heat of summer called for a lot of white wine and there was plenty of that wine. And there was also some fine Gewurztraminer and sparkling wine (Glenora’s Blanc de Blanc was and remains a winner!) and even an off-dry Vidal that cooled the brow.
But on that trip, as early as 1986, it was clear that Riesling would be a brilliant call for the soils and climes of the Finger Lakes, and so it has been proven. It’s one of the few New York wines to be widely accepted by locals. New York City restaurants, which traditionally have leaned heavily on the wines of France and eschewed their own, have embraced New York Riesling as almost no other local wine.
If sales of New York Rieslings were not already red hot locally, they might be strong candidates for national exposure. Alas, New York doesn’t have enough Riesling to meet the current demand, let alone sell it across the nation. (It’s still available on the Internet, of course!) But the Riesling phenomenon now catching on in major U.S. cities, and soon to impact smaller markets, has caught the New York wine industry a bit flat-footed. New York needs a lot more Riesling acreage, but that development is slow in coming.
Even though Riesling is obviously destined to become a huge success, few growers in New York seem committed to planting significant amounts of it. And part of the problem stems from a quarter century ago when wine scientists told New York growers that De Chaunac was a “slam dunk” variety for them to plant. And they gave the growers all sorts of sound reasons why they should plant De Chaunac.
Jim Trezise, head of the New York Wine and Grape Foundation, says that many growers heeded the suggestion and planted De Chaunac - and the market for wines from that grape proved to be nearly non-existent. “So growers are naturally gun-shy when science tells them to tear out producing vines and put in Riesling,” he says.
Of the existing Riesling plantings, therefore, a majority are older vines and the wine making in the Finger Lakes is rather sophisticated in that it seeks to maximize varietal character by harvesting at levels which are not likely to make for an excessively ripe flavor.
There’s Sugar But Does That Make it “Sweet”?
Conversations with wine makers in the area revealed that the vast majority realize that to make a great New York-style Rieslingmeans picking relatively early, with sugar levels as low as 20° Brix, and rarely higher than 22°. As a result, the wines retain a certain mild citrus and Granny Smith apple character in their aroma with a mineral-y base and some muscularity.
These wines are usually made with a trace of residual sugar to balance the rather stern acid levels, and that makes them a nice contrast to many Australian Rieslings whose distinctive lime aromas tend to dominate wines which are almost all bone dry.
Variance in sugar levels can make some of the New York wines taste a little more succulent than others, and in our tasting the three top wines were all a tad on the soft side with residual sugar levels in the 1%+ range.
Even so, it would be possible to classify them as dry wines for most American consumers, even though our panel of expert wine judges clearly recognized the amelioration effect the sugar had on the wines. We rated them just off-dry.
As young as these wines were (all from the 2006 harvest), we saw very little of the petroleum notes that often are found in Riesling. Also, the top three wines of the group seemed to have been fermented with a yeast strain that accentuates terpenes (wildly floral compounds) which gives the wines a slight tropical fruit component. One such yeast, RHST, seems to be popular with some wine makers for giving Riesling an exotic aroma.
Nothing wrong with that, of course, since such wines often are quite appealing. Still, some wine makers who don’t use this technique decry wines that have an amyl acetate (ripe banana) aroma.
New York Riesling is distinctive, so much so that Napa Valley wine maker Scott Harvey (who got his enology training in Germany) trucked 1.6 tons of New York Riesling grapes into California in 2005 and turned it into 100 cases of wine. The fruit came from Anthony Road Wine Co. in the Finger Lakes.
However, because federal regulations prohibit a vintage date on such wines (the grapes crossed more than a single
state line), Harvey bottled it with a label that had the not-so-cryptic designation “20NY05.” He also bottled a bit more of a Napa Valley Riesling that same vintage, and says he will continue to market a small amount of New York Riesling.
How likely is it that Riesling will achieve the national recognition I predict for it in a decade? Well, all the signs are there. (A prior article I wrote for Appellation America makes this point as well.) Here’s some evidence:
* Chateau Ste. Michelle and its ancillary brands made 711,000 cases of Riesling in 2006 and sold it all without any resistance;
* Fetzer (based in Mendocino) will produce 80,000 cases of California Riesling (it’s just about pre-sold) as well as 25,000 cases of German wine that it will buy in bulk (to sell in 12 states when it runs short of its California Riesling). In addition, the company will make 25,000 cases of Monterey Riesling under the Jekel brand.
* Hogue Cellars of Washington came close to 100,000 cases in 2006; Covey Run and Columbia (brands of Constellation) also produced tens of thousands of cases;
* Randall Grahm’s Pacific Rim brand did an estimated 100,000 cases last year with a blend of Washington and German Riesling, and Grahm has put 200 acres of Riesling into Washington soil and is building a huge facility to make only one varietal;
* German Riesling sales are significantly up in the United States over the last three years, and Australian Riesling sales in this country are at an all-time high.
Now that I look at this not-so-scant evidence, perhaps Riesling will be nationally recognized in a lot less than a decade. Maybe, all things being equal, Riesling will be a household name before the end of this decade, a scant three years from now.
Of course, a Sideways-like film that’s a paean to the grape couldn’t hurt.
The Tasting: 2006 Finger Lakes Rieslings
1. Standing Stone: With fruit from a vineyard that was planted by Charles Fournier and Guy DeVaux, this wine exhibited faint spice and leafy-floral aroma with hints of pepper, peach, green apple and the barest hint of petroleum. With about 2% residual sugar, the wine has tremendous potential. A clear winner with five of the nine judges scoring it 18 or 19 out of 20!
2. Lamoreaux Landing Semi-Dry: Delicate, fine lacy aroma with lemon and a trace of lime and green apple; noticeable but fine-balanced sugar on the entry. The key is the bracing acidity. Altogether impressive, but still a bit backward. Better in a year. Four scores of 17 or higher.
3. Chateau Lafayette Reneau: Wild strawberry, peach and pepper (!) with exotic tropical notes in the mid-palate. Noticeably sweeter than the first two wines, but with some exotic floral notes in the finish, so it’s succulent, but perfect balance makes it ideal for Thai food. Four scores of 17 or higher.
4. Dr. Konstantin Frank Dry: Grapefruit/nectarine/sour apple aroma with faint hints of spice, perhaps artichoke (!) and currants. Simply dramatic dry wine that was better with aeration. Three scores of 17 or more.
5. McGregor Dry: Exotically floral (not unlike Michigan Riesling!) with white peach, carnation/spice, white pepper and a dry mid-palate. Superb dry version aimed at sashimi.
6. Anthony Road Dry: Dried lead, citrus and a faint trace of wet earth for complexity. Lean and a tad angular, better with seafood.
7. Ravines Dry: Lime/citrus, pepper, faint hint of petroleum, and faintest trace of artichoke. Distinctly food oriented and a bit more muscular than others. Three scores of 16.5 or higher.
8. Sheldrake Point Dry: Mineral/slate/citrus aroma; a bit angular, but very appealing wine to pair with seafood. Slightly leafy/herbal and unripe apple notes add complexity. A tad controversial.
9. Lamoreaux Landing Reserve: Distinctly Granny Smith apple, citrus, green tea and currants. A most complex wine that one taster didn’t like at all, but which received good scores across the board. Dry; most appealing with food.
10. Prince Michel Rapidan River Dry [Virginia]: earthy-yeasty, with attractive mineral/slate and a truly angular mid-palate. Note of petroleum a bit too assertive for most tasters.
Other Rieslings also tasted: 2005 Fox Run Reserve (stylishly dry and very attractive); 2006 Lakewood (corked sample); 2006 Persimmon Creek [Georgia].
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